Jeffries wants to expand reporting of campaign cash

Riverside County Supervisor Kevin Jeffries is following through on a campaign promise and delivering to colleagues Tuesday a proposal to expand the county's relatively new electronic reporting requirements for receiving campaign contributions.

Under a measure adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 2011, a candidate for county office must report a contribution of $1,000 or larger to the registrar of voters electronically, within 24 hours of receiving it, if it is received during the 90-day period leading up to an election.

The requirement is in addition to the state-mandated financial reporting via paper records, at various intervals before and after elections.

Jeffries' proposed amendment would go farther than the county ordinance, requiring 24-hour electronic reporting of $1,000 contributions all the time, no matter how far away or close an election happens to be.

The requirement would apply to anyone running for a Riverside County elected office, including supervisor, sheriff, district attorney, auditor-controller, treasurer-tax collector and assessor-clerk-recorder.

Supervisors are scheduled to take up the matter Tuesday in Riverside.

"This was an early campaign commitment, promise, that I would do more for transparency for the public to see what’s going on at the county level," Jeffries said in a telephone interview.

This way, he said, voters won't have to wait to see who’s giving $1,000.

"Whenever a candidate for county supervisor or sheriff (or other office) receives a $1,000 contribution or more, they are going to have to immediately post it on the (registrar's) website.”

Jeffries first proposed the change in October, when he was locked in a close race with five-term incumbent Bob Buster for the 1st District seat to represent Lake Elsinore, Canyon Lake, Wildomar, the Meadowbrook area and part of Riverside. Jeffries prevailed in the November runoff by a 1-percentage-point margin.

The initiative going to the board would authorize writing an ordinance amendment. Under county rules, the board must first give an idea its blessing before taking up the measure itself.

Bob Stern, an expert on campaign finance law in Los Angeles, said Jeffries' measure is a helpful one and $1,000 is a reasonable threshold.

"That’s fairly big," said Stern, the former president of the Center for Governmental Studies that closed in late 2011. "And it's probably basically coming from somebody who wants something from government."

Local governments must follow state rules on campaign contribution reporting, but they also may adopt their own.

"Not that many cities and counties have done that much with electronic filing yet," Stern said. "But it's something that is very important. The voters otherwise have to go down to the county registrar of voters to see the paper documents. This gives everybody an opportunity to see what’s going on.”

An even better rule, Stern added, would be to restrict contributions to election years.

The Riverside County board is scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the first-floor auditorium of the County Administrative Center, 4080 Lemon St., Riverside.